The Great Serengeti Migration Trail 11 Days, 10 Nights

Summary
– Come and see the World’s Greatest wildlife migration visiting Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara and Tarangire. The best time to visit is December to February and from May to July.

The mass movement of the migrants shall start at the beginning of the dry season from June and continue year after year searching for fresh, green pasture and water. The migration gets into Kenya at Maasai Mara park and stay there for two months only i.e August and September, therefore the best time to visit Serengeti National Park is December to February and from May to July.

ITINERARY

ARRIVING TO TANZANIA
Upon your arrival meet at Kilimanjaro international Airport and transfer to Arusha Duluti Lodge for bed and breakfast B/B. www.lakeduluti.com/home2.htm
Just a 10 minutes easy drive out of Arusha will take you to a mysterious yet spiritual and very scenic crater lake named by the local Meru people ‘DULUTI’. On its shores lies another marvelous reason to visit Arusha…LAKE DULUTI LODGE. It is the finest countryside retreat around and it has managed to incorporate a unique authentic African rural life setting with amenities and service fit for the royal family. Lake Duluti Lodge’s location, architecture and design, activities offered, cuisine served and the excellent service delivered will definitely make your job of imagining how the paradise will feel like a lot more easier from now on. Tanzania’s world famous warm hospitality has just been taken a notch higher and luxury as we know it has just been redefined.

DAY 1: FLIGHT FROM SERENGETI
• Serengeti National Park is undoubtedly the best-known wildlife sanctuary in the world, unequalled for its natural beauty and scientific value. With more than two million wildebeest, half a million Thomson’s gazelle, and a quarter of a million zebra, it has the greatest concentration of plains game in Africa. The wildebeest and zebra moreover form the star cast of a unique spectacular – the annual Serengeti migration.

• The name ‘Serengeti’ comes from the Maasai language and appropriately means an ‘extended place’. The National Park, with an area of 12,950 square kilometres, is as big as Northern Ireland, but its ecosystem, which includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the Maswa Game Reserve and the Maasai Mara Game reserve (in Kenya), is roughly the size of Kuwait. It lies between the shores of Lake Victoria in the west, Lake Eyasi in the south, and the Great Rift Valley to the east. As such, it offers the most complex and least disturbed ecosystem on earth.
After your breakfast at 08.30 transfer from Arusha Duluti Lodge to Arusha Airport for your flight Arusha Serengeti. ETD 08:00am. Arriving Serengeti around 10:00am, you will meet with our Safari Guide who will take you for a game drive enroute to your Lodge. Arriving in time for lunch check inn and lunch with an afternoon at leisure or go for an evening game drive. In the evening drive back to Migration Camp for dinner and overnight FB. www.elewanaafrica.com

DAY 2: SERENGETI FULL DAY WITH GAME VIEWING
After breakfast leave with your lunch boxes for a full day game drive on the Serengeti Park acacia Savannah in the central to the east region around Lobo area. Your packed lunch will be saved around 12.30 and 13.00pm, thereafter proceed with tour afternoon game drive. Depending with season Lobo area is one of the Serengeti Magnificent game centaury with its resident Big Five spp guaranteeing you a rewarding day activities. In the evening drive to Migration Camp for dinner and overnight FB. www.elewanaafrica.com

DAY 3: SERENGETI NORTH TO SOUTHERN AREA
• This area is dominated by the vast and seemingly endless short grass plains, stretching southwards from Naabi Hill farther than the eye can see – towards the extinct volcanoes of the Ngorongoro Highlands directly south, the Maswa woodlands in the south west and the dramatic Gol Mountains and open plains of Loliondo to the south east and east respectively. The southern plains are at their best between mid December and late May when this whole area comes alive as millions of wildebeest move onto the plains in search of the fresh green grass after the first rains.
• Much of this area actually lies outside the boundaries of the Serengeti National Park itself, which allows an important element of freedom and flexibility – off road driving is permitted across the open plains, greatly enhancing game viewing opportunities and giving you a real sense of the vastness of this area. In parts you can drive for much of the day hardly seeing another human, at times almost wading through vast concentrations of plains games or sitting quietly, close to an isolated water pan way out in the plains, almost certainly home to its own resident group of lion or hyena and, with patience a very likely amphitheatre for some sort of predator action to play out.

After breakfast take a packed lunch with you and continue with game viewing on Serengeti Park. The migration can be seen on a long chain approximately 40 Km heading to the south western direction. Around 1230 and 1300 break for your lunch. After lunch have a rest for one hr, and then proceed with your game viewing following the move of the migrants on the southeast of the park. Aprox 1.3 million wildebeest, 250,000 gazelles and 200,000 Zebras have been recorded sharing the short grass/ water which is the source of food for the millions of Animals in this South Area.
Dinner and overnight at Olakira Tented Camp FB. Olakira Camp is a classic mobile tented camp right in the middle of prime wildlife areas in the Serengeti, the land that offers probably the best wildlife spectacle on the planet. www.asiliaafrica.com

DAY 4: SERENGETI SOUTH FULL DAY
This day is spent exploring this unique area of Serengeti/Ndutu, the area host some of the rarest spp of Animal like the Endangered Wild-Dogs who may be seen around Piyaya the Buffer zone between Serengeti and Ngorongoro. Discussing with your Guide about each next day activities. In the evening you will drive back to Olakira Camp for dinner and overnight FB. www.asiliaafrica.com

DAY 5: SERENGETI – NGORONGORO
• The multiple land use philosophy in the area is to maintain the peaceful co-existence of human and wildlife in a natural and traditional setting. Pastoralism, conservation of natural resources and tourism are the three, main components that are given equal consideration in policy shaping decisions. The NCA aims for the historic balance of people and nature in a way which has not been possible in many parts of the world. At stake are the rich bio diversity and ecology of the Serengeti Plains and The Ngorongoro Highlands, the major paleontological and archaeological sites and important water catchment areas. Tourism is a vital element in raising revenue and has been encouraged and developed with a respect for culture and without damaging the environment. Man and his ancestors have lived in the Ngorongoro eco-system for more than three million years. By careful research and continuing management, the fragile balance between man and nature will be successfully maintained.

After breakfast with your packed lunch drive and game enroute to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It is your option whether you pass by Oldupai Gorge a historical site whereby the early man lived and can also pass by the Maasai boma if you are interested in the real African life tradition and culture, After your lunch enroute adds to the crater rim for your dinner and overnight at Ngorongoro Serena Lodge FB www.serenahotels.com

DAY 6: NGORONGORO – CRATER TOUR
Early in the morning with Packed Breakfast and Lunch descend into the crater floor for your game viewing. The famous Ngorongoro Crate is rich of wildlife, each species have their own territories, so this is a very good time to visit the crater as it is during the end of November to December also during the end of the long rain season. Late April to May, numbers of animals come out for green grass and water so spotting them becomes easy. Your packed breakfast and lunch will be served on the crater floor at the picnic site near Lerai forest or hippo pool. Many crater visitors want to see rare species, “the Black rhinoceros’, this is the right time, because during the dry season is very hard to see them as they are afraid of sun burn. Late afternoon ascend the crater for your dinner and overnight at Ngorongoro Serena Lodge FB. www.serenahotels.com

DAY 7: NGORONGORO – LAKE MANYARA NATIONAL PARK
• Stretching for 50km along the base of the rusty-gold 600-metre high Rift Valley escarpment, Lake Manyara is a scenic gem, with a setting extolled by Ernest Hemingway as “the loveliest I had seen in Africa”.The compact game-viewing circuit through Manyara offers a virtual microcosm of the Tanzanian safari experience. From the entrance gate, the road winds through an expanse of lush jungle-like groundwater forest where hundred-strong baboon troops lounge nonchalantly along the roadside, blue monkeys scamper nimbly between the ancient mahogany trees, dainty bushbuck tread warily through the shadows, and outsized forest hornbills honk cacophonously in the high canopy.

• Contrasting with the intimacy of the forest is the grassy floodplain and its expansive views eastward, across the alkaline lake, to the jagged blue volcanic peaks that rise from the endless Maasai Steppes. Large buffalo, wildebeest and zebra herds congregate on these grassy plains, as do giraffes – some so dark in coloration that they appear to be black from a distance.
This morning after breakfast leave Ngorongoro to Karatu Gibb`s Farm Lodge pass by Local School and Village for a bit of Culture exchange. The Village and School Tour will take you till noon when will drive to the Lodge Gibb`s for Lunch and afternoon at leisure. GIBB’S FARM is a working Farm located on the forested slopes of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It comprises a warm and friendly community where the rhythm of Farm Life has calmed and restored the weary safari journeyer for over 40 years. GIBB’S FARM hugs nearly a mile of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, part of a 3,200 square mile reserve. Ideally located, the Farm lies half way between Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater, near the village of Karatu. Set among formal English gardens, the Farmhouse and 20 ensuite cottages are the heart of a working farm. Built in 1929, the Farmhouse has hardly changed, retaining the charm of a well looked-after private house. Cozy living rooms and reading corners are just steps away from the dining room, bar and gift shop. You will stay here for two nights on FB.DAY 8: LEKE MANYARA TOUR
In the Morning after breakfast drive to Lake Manyara National Park with packed lunch from Gibb`s Lodge. Lake Manyara is one of the most diverse of Tanzania’s National Parks, a tiny (325km2) combination of Rift Valley, ground water forest, Lake and dense woodland. In the evening at your convenience you will drive back to the Lodge Gibb’s farm for dinner and overnight FB.

DAY 9: GIBB`S LODGE TO TARANGIRE NATIONAL PARK
• The fierce sun sucks the moisture from the landscape, baking the earth a dusty red, the withered grass as brittle as straw. The Tarangire River has shrivelled to a shadow of its wet season self. But it is choked with wildlife. Thirsty nomads have wandered hundreds of parched kilometres knowing that here, always, there is water. Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the dry river bed for underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons. It’s the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem – a smorgasbord for predators – and the one place in Tanzania where dry-country antelope such as the stately fringe-eared oryx and peculiar long-necked gerenuk are regularly observed.
This day early in the morning we will do a 2hour walk up to the Elephant cave and come back for breakfast, after the breakfast, you will leave to Tarangire National Park. Arriving in time for lunch at Tarangire Tree Top Lodge and have an afternoon at leisure. Evening dinner and overnight Tarangire Tree Top Lodge. FB www.elewanaafrica.com

DAY 10: TARANGIRE NATIONAL PARK FULL DAY
This day with packed lunch we leave for a full day game drive in the park Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the dry river bed for underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons. It’s the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem – a smorgasbord for predators – and the one place in Tanzania where dry-country antelope such as the stately fringe-eared Oryx and peculiar long-necked gerenuk are regularly observed. In the evening we will drive back to the Lodge for dinner and overnight at Tree Top Lodge FB. www.elewanaafrica.comDAY 11: TARANGIRE NATIONAL PARK FULL DAY
After breakfast, leave Tarangire to Arusha town, there is an option if you would like to pass by Meserani Snake Park the place where you would have lunch and on your way there many curio shops you can stop and buy some souvenirs if you would like, our guides knows the safe place where you can stop and shop. Afternoon drive and arrive in Arusha town check into your hotel for lunch and day room In the evening transfer to the Airport for your flight back home or Zanzibar (Optional) www.lakeduluti.com/home2.htm

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